Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 1.djvu/418

376 To crown the Bards that haunt her classic grove;

Where wakes a genuine poet's fires,

And modern Britons glory in their Sires.

For me, who, thus unasked, have dared to tell

My country, what her sons should know too well,

Zeal for her honour bade me here engage

The host of idiots that infest her age;

No just applause her honoured name shall lose,

As first in freedom, dearest to the Muse.

Oh! would thy bards but emulate thy fame,

And rise more worthy, Albion, of thy name!

What Athens was in science, Rome in power,

What Tyre appeared in her meridian hour,

'Tis thine at once, fair Albion! to have been—

Earth's chief Dictatress, Ocean's lovely Queen:

But Rome decayed, and Athens strewed the plain,

And Tyre's proud piers lie shattered in the main;